Wifi Camera's to work with Home Assistant.

georgelza

georgelza

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hi hi guys.

I want to add some indoor wifi camera's.

Any good brands to look at?
I have a pretty strong NAS (TrueNAS), lots of space, to which I can stream the media.
I'd also like to integrate it with HA, allowing me to view the "camera" remotely via HA

Any guidance appreciated.
Might eventually extend to same brand/external camera's.

PS: don't want anything that MUST have "internet" access to work, aka any foreign talk home.

G
 
HA is a popular attack vector and exposing the service on the internet without taking appropriate steps is not a great idea.

As is any NAT/port forward.

Imagining VPN is magically secure is also a problem. Your device is being exposed to an aggregation service over which you have no control, makes your device visible to the aggregation service and possibly any clients connected to it.

What you actually need is an outbound-only service. Sadly no vendors out there provide it. Because security is not the first consideration.
 
georgelza said:
hi hi guys.

I want to add some indoor wifi camera's.

Any good brands to look at?
I have a pretty strong NAS (TrueNAS), lots of space, to which I can stream the media.
I'd also like to integrate it with HA, allowing me to view the "camera" remotely via HA

Any guidance appreciated.
Might eventually extend to same brand/external camera's.

PS: don't want anything that MUST have "internet" access to work, aka any foreign talk home.

G
Click to expand...
Sounds like camera's are the least of your concerns. Why do you need to monitor the inside and why would you risk the exposure?
 
... appreciate the warning... but that was not the question.

looking for a indoor camera that i can point to something like frigate running locally, that I can integrate with HA... that my question.

G
 
honestly... dont want to explain the why's... I have valid reasons...

I'm looking for the simple question of what are others using, have found work in similar setup.

G
 
The way I have it is Camera > Frigate > Frigate HA Intergration > Tailscale VPN for remote access.

As for what camera brands, personally I would only stick with HikVision or Dahua. I run all dahua's at my house.
 
rustypup said:
HA is a popular attack vector and exposing the service on the internet without taking appropriate steps is not a great idea.

As is any NAT/port forward.

Imagining VPN is magically secure is also a problem. Your device is being exposed to an aggregation service over which you have no control, makes your device visible to the aggregation service and possibly any clients connected to it.

What you actually need is an outbound-only service. Sadly no vendors out there provide it. Because security is not the first consideration.
Click to expand...
What if he kept it all local, then used RDP to view the NVR output?

Technically he would have the same exposure as any other standard windows environment then.
 
ArmatageShanks said:
used RDP to view the NVR output?
Click to expand...
Would still expose Windows RDS to the internet which is bad idea squared... tripled even. RDS should never see the internet - at least not directly.

Configuring a restricted gateway on a custom port and segregated network with limited cross-talk.... *maybe*. Better than just plugging these services into the internet.

Would still have to bridge to the local network at some point and that point needs some thought.
 
Tapo cameras have good integration with HA (and with Frigate, but I admit I do not use Frigate). I use one to watch the area our cars are parked in.
 
rustypup said:
Would still expose Windows RDS to the internet which is bad idea squared... tripled even. RDS should never see the internet - at least not directly.

Configuring a restricted gateway on a custom port and segregated network with limited cross-talk.... *maybe*. Better than just plugging these services into the internet.

Would still have to bridge to the local network at some point and that point needs some thought.
Click to expand...
And 3rd party RDP providers? I love using Chrome Remote Desktop, never thought much about how secure it is
 
Pretty much anything that supports RTSP can work with Scrypted (better than HA native in my opinion) or HA natively.

Use Hikvision myself.

While my HA is exposed to the internet behind Nginx and Letsencrypt/DuckDNS, I actually much prefer my camera feeds living in Apple HomeKit giving me a better NVR experience than any local solution.
 
We use Ezviz wired cams with RTSP feed in HA, no feed on the wireless cameras (found that out afterwards).
 
ArmatageShanks said:
And 3rd party RDP providers
Click to expand...
I have encountered no RDP software that I would consider robust or secure enough for this use case

If you configure and manage the VPN endpoint: VPN > Gateway > Local resources

If you use a paid-for VPN service over which you have no control or visibility: Physically seperate network > Gateway dropping ICMP/IGMP/etc as much as possible > Internal gateway > RDS

--Alternately

Robust public getway > segregated network > tunnel > internal Gateway > internal resources. Can perform decent upfront MFA and limits exposure.

Gateway implies actual device dropping IGMP / broadcasts / snooping / discovery.

Static-NAT/NAT'ting is lifting your skirt on the first date
RDP adds ribbons.

VPN demands drinks and wooing - 100x better than simply connecting directly BUT the consideration is you have extended trust to a common aggregation point and are now relying on the upstream provider to protect you from other users of the same service and any threat actors looking to leverage the aggregation service. Assuming it's "secure" because "VPN" is a mistake.

Risk is a personal choice. Always.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Pretty much anything that supports RTSP can work with Scrypted (better than HA native in my opinion) or HA natively.

Use Hikvision myself.

While my HA is exposed to the internet behind Nginx and Letsencrypt/DuckDNS, I actually much prefer my camera feeds living in Apple HomeKit giving me a better NVR experience than any local solution.
Click to expand...

can you explain the feed flow a bit ... I know there are lots of Hikvision available at one of the stores close by... quality/price ?
G
 
SauRoNZA said:
Pretty much anything that supports RTSP can work with Scrypted (better than HA native in my opinion) or HA natively.

Use Hikvision myself.

While my HA is exposed to the internet behind Nginx and Letsencrypt/DuckDNS, I actually much prefer my camera feeds living in Apple HomeKit giving me a better NVR experience than any local solution.
Click to expand...
From what I can see Scrypted is a competitor/alternate option to Frigate ? Just want to confirm. Does Scrypted only stream or can it also record onto say a NAS attached storage / TrueNAS

G
 
georgelza said:
From what I can see Scrypted is a competitor/alternate option to Frigate ? Just want to confirm. Does Scrypted only stream or can it also record onto say a NAS attached storage / TrueNAS

G
Click to expand...

Scrypted NVR is the paid for side of it as far as I understood it.

In my case I run Scrypted in Home Assistant with all cameras Onvif/Rtsp enabled.

Then I use the HomeKit integration inside Scrypted to them all show up as HomeKit enabled cameras and then Apple takes care of the NVR bit for me.
 
pls explain "Apple takes care of the NVR bit for me." how where does Apple do this to? with NVR being the recording side, want to keep the feed local on network storage and onto my HA app / as a view/interface.

G
 
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